Edward seemed to be her guardian angel. The fellows, who now saw that a friend of their captive's had come to her rescue, fled as fast as they could, and the young merchant expressed his joy at finding her again and his sorrow at the condition in which he found her.

'Your's is no feigned condolence,' she exclaimed, 'I read it on your features.'

'Alas!' he said, and forced a melancholy smile, 'you are mistaken. 'Tis my own misfortunes that cloud my brow; I am about to leave England for ever.'

'What,' she said, 'are your hopes of Alice's hand destroyed?'

'How know you of my love?' he earnestly exclaimed, but instantly checked himself; 'this is no time for explanations-my hopes are indeed destroyed. This day the Lady Alice weds the Lord of Waltham on the Wold-hark to the marriage peal. The King himself, in person, graces the wedding, which takes place at St. Paul's. I go to witness it and then to bid farewell to my native land for ever. Come with me, and after the ceremony has passed, 1 will conduct you to your father. Constance, you have much to answer for in the sorrows you have heaped on his grey hairs.'

No sooner had Constance (who, leaning on Edward's arm, was safely escorted through the crowd collected to witness the marriage procession) fixed her eyes on the bridegroom, who stood at the altar, than she exclaimed aloud, 'I forbid the marriage! I am the wife of the Lord of Waltham!'

'All started, and the Lord of Waltham, who was indeed the husband of Constance, exclaimed, 'Remove that madwoman hence!'

'How is this?" said the King, 'hath she any grounds, my lord, for what she asserts?'

She is not my wife, I solemnly assure your majesty,' was the reply.

'Villain, thou liest!' cried Edward, 'well do I know thee, and I beheld you two married with these eyes.'

What, art thou here, thou headstrong fool?' said he of Waltham; 'thou saw'st a mock ceremony, indeed-but it was a servant of mine that performed it, and not a priest. Step forward, Jenkin; often hast thou performed the office.'

One of his vassals advanced and corroborated the assertion of his master. Meanwhile, Constance had told her story to the King and Earl.

• My daughter,' said the Earl of Nottingham, ' weds not with such a man as this.'

'Thou art right,' said the King; ' but there shall be a wedding nevertheless. Hark ye, Sir Lord of Waltham on the Wold, unless thou wed this lady, this Constance, on the instant in our presence, thou holdest thine head but upon a frail tenure.'

Thus compelled, the traitor, unwillingly, discharged the act of justice.

Thou hast said,' said the King, ' with all my worldly goods I thee endow-thou shalt make it good. Thy crimes are so great that we think thou hadst better retire to a cloister-thy lady here shall not be cumbered with thy hateful presence. Hence with him - if he dare complain, he shall be brought to justice and pay the forfeit of his life.' Speechless at the terrible sentence, he was hurried off.

The Lady Constance did not live on her estate -she returned to the home of her father, and gave the Lordship of Waltham on the Wold to her deliverer, Edward, who soon, with this powerful recommendation, won the hand of the Lady Alice.

A.C.C.

the government, from its facility of affording national conveniency. By an indulgence, granted to very few, this office, whence it is obviously necessary to exclude the public, can - only be seen. It is constructed for the reception of a numerous body, of various classes, all busily employed, and consisting of nearly two hundred and fifty persons. The action of this living machine, as it may well be termed, is certainly of very great importance to the community; by its operation, the hopes and fears of his majesty's subjects are raised or allayed, confirmed or annihilated; the immense trade of his dominions considerably facilitated, and a direct communication with the most distant parts of the empire and its colonies rendered certain and expeditious. The clerks and others employed in this part of the office, like the members of the everlasting club, must be always at their post. No public holidays, as in other offices, no leave of absence, or even illness, can excuse the daily attendance of this stated number, whose motto is despatch.

The inland office is a hall, of nearly equal dimensions on every side, about sixty or seventy feet, constructed from a design by the late John Thomas Groves. Twelve Doric columns form a peristyle, and support a continued entablature, whence rises an eliptical dome, open in the centre, to admit a very handsome sky-light of bent glass. The corridors are also lighted from the ceiling, and, excepting on the side communicating with the letter-carriers' office, by folding-doors: the surrounding walls are occupied by divisions, agreeing in number with the mail coaches despatched hence every evening..

These divisions are filled with eabinets, closed with latticed doors, and containing partitions, all inscribed with the names of the several

In

towns upon on each separate road. the area of the peristyle are large tables, covered with green cloth; upon these the operation of sorting the letters is performed, in a manner neither tedious nor intricate, which it is hardly necessary to explain in detail. The letters are transferred to the divisions before-named, and, after undergoing a peculiar computation, are finally sent on their route; all which is accomplished with accuracy and precision, only to be acquired by constant practice. The degree of perfection, indeed, which this grand machine has already attained, must have required, in its gradual and progressive improvement, the application of powerful ability, as well as a very judicious adoption and arrangement of the various means frequently suggested by the speculations of ingenious projectors.

When any event of general or particular interest transpires, we are informed it is sensibly felt in this department of the Post-office: the debates of parliament, on the arrival of important news, greatly add to the public correspondence; other causes, as a popular election, Valentine's day, or the tea sales at the India House, also affect the ciculation of letters. Fifty thousand in the morning for London, and the same in the evening for the country, is no uncommon number. On these occasions, a great attendance of clerks is consequently required, that no delay may be experienced by the public.

The public is now so well acquainted with the official attention to its convenience, that the ancient additions to the directions of letters of, With speed. Haste, post haste; and the very enticing words, Please to deliver this immediately, and you will be rewarded for your trouble, are no longer considered necessary.

The careful management of this active machine is under the direction of a superintending president, a president, and a vice-president, appellations unusually characteristic in matters of business. Others to whom particular and confidential duties belong, are termed inspectors.

The blind inspector, rather a strange denomination, has the very difficult task of making legible all the ill-written and badly spelled directions of letters put into the office. Some, whose education has been neglected, will spell Oxford thus, Auksphut-right, according to their mode of pronunciation; others, for the humour of it, will enigmatise thus, A Bridge for Gretabridge in Yorkshire. Tosey is, agreeably to a rural mode of spelling, St. Osyth, &c. Sometimes he is puzzled with a scrawl not unlike a spider's web, or the migration of a fly, wet from the inkstand, over the paper; the privilege of franking inducing some to direct a letter, who, perhaps, would not otherwise attempt it.

By a diligent study of his duty, for a certain number of years, a clerk renders himself competent to be an inspector of franks, an office once held by Edward Cave, who ought to be remembered as the first public reporter of the debates of parliament, and as the earliest patron of Dr. Johnson, who wrote the speeches from his reports. He was supposed to have too narrowly confined the privilege of franking, and, after being reprimanded by the House, was obliged to resign his post.

The inspectors of franks have now attained a remarkable facility of discovering the precise number each M. P. issues; and whoever it may be, prince or peer, who, in his readiness to confer a favour, exceeds hıs limit, is sure to make his correspondent pay the postage. Of this fact we are enabled to speak from costly experience. We indeed know a member of parliament, there are

doubtless many such, who very candidly told us he never refused the triffing favour of a frank, even if asked for it thirty times a day. It is quite needless to say we should decline his frank if offered. The idle attempt at fraud of inserting in the usual corner, instead of the name, the words Free, if you please, meets with certain detection.

The packets for the West Indies are also made up in the inland office; this branch of the service was established in the reign of Queen Anne, by Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart., with whose excellent character, by a contemporary, we shall conclude.

'Sir Thomas Frankland is chief of a very good family in Yorkshire, with a very good estate; his being my Lord Fauconberg's nephew, and marrying a grand-daughter of Oliver Cromwell, first recommended him to King William, who at the revolution made him commissioner of the Excise, and, in some years after, governor of the Post-office. By abundance of application, he understands that office better than any man in England; and notwithstanding we had no intercourse with France last war, he improved the revenue to ten thousand pounds a year more than it was in the flourishing years. He was the first that directed a correspondence with Spain and Portugal, and all our foreign plantations, to the great advantage of our traffic, and is turned for greater matters when the government shall think fit to employ him. The queen, by reason of his great capacity and honesty, bath continued him in the office of post-master general. He is a gentleman of very easy, affable disposition, of good sense-keeps an exact unity amongst the officers under him, and encourages them in their duty, through a peculiar familiarity, by which he at once obliges them, and keeps up the dignity of being master.'

(Mackay's Memoirs, 1713.)

Scientific.

THE STEAM ENGINE.

THE slow progress of science in former ages, cannot be better evinced than by the invention and general application of the steam engine. The first principles of this power was discovered and applied many ages since, altho' the precise period cannot be ascertained. Even the country which gave birth to it is unknown, consequently this honour has been a subject of contention for a long time. To such an extent has this dispute been carried, that, we are informed, upwards of 100,000 copies of works professing to elucidate the point, have been sold within the last few years. By some, its invention has been attributed to the Earl of Worcester, in the reign of Charles the Second. Millington, Lardner, Nicholson, and others, have supported this opinion-the ingenious Watt has likewise bad his.

The French, on their side, assign the honour to one Solomon de Cans; but unfortunately for them, that individual does not claim it for himself in any shape.

The dispute has been kept alive with reference to various eminent experimentalists, from the time the engine first became generally known; but a French author writing on the subject, says, 'the proof of its originating in England is manifest, from the fact that all steam engines erected out of England were the work of English artizans.'

The earliest known suggestion for the application of steam, is one made about 130 years before Christ, by Hero of Alexandria, and published in his Spiritalia, which is still

extant.

In 1615, a treatise on moving forces was written, wherein several modes of raising water are mentioned, viz.-By syphon, (the most ancient)-by capillary attraction

by compressed air or steam-by animal labour applied to machinery, &c. the third of which partook of the properties of the steam power. However, Solomon has said, there is nothing new under the sun,' and on this occasion we may fairly conclude, that the Steam Engine is only the extension and improvement discovered many centuries since.

LONDON STREETS,

Edit.

At Four o'clock on a Summer's Morning. Whoever wishes to see the streets

of London in their most singular aspect, should mount his horse and ride thro' them between three and four o'clock on a summer's morning. - What a contrast do they present, compared with their appearance at the noon-day hour! their solitude is almost appalling. Now and then, a party of half-a-dozen persons may perchance be met returning home from the preceding night's revel.It seems a city devastated by some dreadful calamity. The very watchmen are silent, and mostly asleep in their boxes. The streets can commonly be associated with nothing less resembling them in character than their aspect at such an hour. Clear of smoke, and endless in extent, with a pure atmosphere and sunshine over them, they seem operated upon by enchantment; the inhabitants appear dead, or exiled from their dwellings: it is as if there were a death in every house, and the closed up shutters were tokens of mourning and funeral. But the unbroken, inexorable dead silence is, after all, most startling, when we find it where, daily and hourly, for years, we have been stunned by noise and deafened by uproar. Yet in a few hours all will again present the same busy, noisy, smoky, obscure appearance; man and art will arise and extinguish nature, and every thing will assume its accustomed character.